Published on :
The Togolese Teachers’ Union (SET) is at the origin of a partially followed strike movement over the past three weeks to demand, among other things, a housing bonus, the hiring of contract teachers and more consideration. A mobilization without legal basis, according to the authorities.
According to members of the SET management team, the three trade unionists are currently in the premises of the Togolese Gendarmerie’s Central Criminal Research and Investigation Service (SCRIC). ” Our comrades were apprehended, Friday evening, at the publisher of our membership cards “, explains Mawouegna Kokou, general secretary of the teachers’ union.
According to him, the requests for new memberships being important, the SET had recruited a computer specialist and it is the latter who would be called into question.
The Minister of Public Service, Labor and Social Dialogue Gilbert Bawara affirms that the arrests have nothing to do with current events in the education sector, but that the computer scientist was wanted for making false administrative documents. ” It does not concern us, we are not bandits “, reacts the secretary general of the SET. He sees in the arrest of his colleagues a means of pressure, ” a strategy to curb the movement “. And to add: But we are determined. Teachers need better living and working conditions. »
The three trade unionists are also accused of aggravated disturbances to public order and the computer specialist is suspected of complicity on the basis of an unsigned letter, indicates their lawyer to our correspondent in Lomé, Peter Dogbé. For Me Célestin Agbogan, there is no concordant index, they must be released. “ There is no concordant index that can allow us to maintain or drop our clients who, moreover, do not recognize the facts. They must be freed ».
Another member of the union’s national office believes the authorities want the SET to drop its demands. The students of Togo do not have class at the moment, because it is the week of the Easter holidays. ” Mobilization will be reactivated at the start of the school year, starting next week “, he says.
Following this movement, 146 strikers were expelled from teaching by Minister Gilbert Bawara.
► To read also: Teachers’ strike in Togo: the government remains firm on the case of the 145 suspended teachers
